Krugman: Obama 'bungled the line'

Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman on Monday slammed President Barack Obama’s remark that the private sector is “doing fine,” calling it “unfortunate” and adding that the president “screwed up the line.”

“That was an unfortunate line. The president bungled the line. The truth is, the private sector is doing better than the public sector, which is not well enough,” said Krugman on CBS’s “This Morning.”

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Last Friday, Obama had said “the private sector is doing fine” during a press conference. Within hours, Obama had backtracked, telling the press “it is absolutely clear the economy is not doing fine.”

The New York Times columnist said the real story of the recession is that normal public-sector job growth would have created nearly 1½ million jobs.

“By this point in Obama’s presidency, if we had normal sector job growth, we’d have 800,000 more people: firefighters, schoolteachers, police officers. Instead, we’ve got 600,000 fewer,” explained Krugman. “So right there, it’s like 1.4 million jobs that we should have had in the public sector.”

“That’s what he was trying to get at and of course, he screwed up the line,” Krugman added.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain on Monday laughed about President Barack Obama’s comment last week that “the private sector is doing fine,” saying the incident was reflective of the president’s overall “philosophy.”

At a press conference about the economy on Friday, Obama told reporters that he believes the private sector is “doing fine” — remarks that quickly drew wide criticism from Republicans. As a presidential candidate, McCain had made a similar gaffe about the economy when he said that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

Joking that Obama’s comments took him down “a little trip down memory lane,” McCain said on “Fox & Friends” Monday that the remarks were symbolic of Obama’s general view of the economy.

“I’d like to go down Central Avenue in Phoenix with him and show him these small-business owners and these closed businesses and store fronts and all of the impact this recession has had on the economy of the private sector,” the Arizona Republican said. “It shows the philosophy of the president of the United States. He believes that having state, federal and local governments hire more people that that’s the answer to the way out.”

Asked how tough it might be for Obama to shake off the comments — which the president tried to clarify later on Friday by saying “it is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine” — McCain suggested that media bias would help the president.

“It all depends on the media coverage. I would argue that a lot of the media is not too unfriendly to the president,” he said.